Aaranya Kaandam - A new chapter 'also' in Tamil Cinema

Aaranya Kaandam ( Translating to Jungle chapter) is the third chapter in the epic Ramayana. It deals with Raavan kidnapping Sita and the beginning of Ram and Laxman's search for Sita with the help of so many.

The USP of this particular chapter is deception. How Raavan employed Mareech to deceive Ram/Laxman in order to kidnap Sita. And the movie that released with the same name today lives up and does justice to its title.


Title : Aaranya Kaandam.

Director : Thayagarajan Kumararaja.


Cast : Jackie Sheroff, Sampath, Ravi Krishna and Yasmin Ponnappa.

The movie was launched with a great backing from the South Asian Film festival. It won the Grand Jury award at the said function and my hopes were high on this movie and now I'll try to put into words how far it remained true to the hype. I was sitting there taking notes and wrote a rough review of the first half during the interval break. Yes, I was impressed.



The movie starts with the introduction of Singaperumal (Jackie) and Subbu (Yasmin). The first half is racy like you want any fast movie to be. There are no stereotypical fight scene introductory scenes to insist that the plot is over a group of gangsters. Pasupathi's (Sampath) role comes off as a good person among the bad ones. Someone who is smarter than the rest. Ajay Raj of Chennai-28 fame pulls off a comic stint as Chittu. The kid Kodukkapuli and his dad were one of my favorite additions. The dad guy showing innocence, the kid playing a role way above his age and the couple of scenes where the father-son intimacy are shown leave a mark in your mind.  First half is a relatively short one compared to conventional Tamil Cinema and it moves twice its pace and before you even know you hit the interval block. The first half gets interesting in the first fifteen minutes with a number of parallel plots. The interval block couldn't have been better. The cock fight just before the interval block will remind you of the one in Aadukalam, only here its real and graphics were not used. The first half will already leave you guessing the climax. If only it was the usual Tamil cinema story your guess would most certainly come true in the second half and that's where the script scores.

The chase in the beginning of the first half is a remarkable attempt at innovation, at both camera and screenplay. I should say that we all got used to watching the hero being chased by a group in almost one in three movies differing only in the location or the distance or both. This chase focused more on the story and I should say the path on which the story is to travel for the next one hour or so is decided during that chase. All this while Ravi Krishna who played  the character Sappa remains a vestigial character in the movie excepting a few scenes which of course were important. A few scenes in the second half involving Yasmin and Ravi were the ones pulling the reins tight on the horse. They could've let it loose a bit.

The movie then races to the climax. A plan unfolds in front of your eyes, a simple but effective one. Something that will make you go 'bravo'. Before you know the movie reaches the climax. And man, this is one unexpected climax. I waited for my guesses to come true and the script laughed at me every time it proved my guesses wrong.

The dialogues need a special mention. They are raw, crude and exposes the lifestyle of the most primal class of people. And it makes you stick to the movie and relate to the characters.

Now I have to mention Jackie Sheroff separately. He has pulled off a role that none else could. I should say not that none can but none will. The introduction scene indicates the character's impotency and I bet any actor would think twice before saying yes for the inclusion of such a scene.

The Kamalhassan, Rajnikanth, Vijaykanth joke was indeed well played.

And the music. The best thing about this movie was the exclusion of songs. I was glad. There were too many strong scripts that faced criticism because of the inclusion of ridiculous songs. Being a gangster subject one would expect an item number with the mobs dancing and drinking around her. But the director has scored yet again in that area. Yuvan's music did not intervene the  movie at any point. The subtle violin made the dialogues and the monologues even more clear.



A very special mention to S.P. Charan for having believed in the script and for taking a bold attempt to carry the movie on his shoulders. I think he will be paid back with good criticism and sadly this movie doesn't promise commercial success.

The movie ends with THAT character walking away voicing out THAT line and THAT says all about the movie in one line.


To sum up, I think I'll give it a 9.5/10. The 0.5 being taken off just to keep the crew on their feet. I really don't know how Thyagarajan Kumararaja will handle his next movie after having set such a high benchmark for himself.

Bottom line:

I can gladly say we have got a near perfect movie in a very long time.

Make a choice

The world around us is made up infinite space. With innumerable points scattered all around us. Yet each point has its own co-ordinate and is unique. Each point has a name, has a behaviour and is different from the others. That's how man is defined. Each of us (you, me and that fat stranger who takes the dog for a walk ) are different. If we draw a Venn diagram with all possible character traits as the universal set, almost everyone of us would have large sets of common traits. Yet we are different, some at the very basic level (like the ones with six fingers) and some at levels of immense complexity that one almost fails to spot the difference. It would be appropriate to recollect Pauli's exclusion principle here. It governs electrons and their behaviour governs us. Q.E.D.


Man stands alone. One might ask why. With the multitude of common factors between any two persons why does one have to stand alone?

Life, as we know it, is governed by decisions and when it comes to decisions it ultimately comes down to you. Sixth sense, rationalism, distinguishing good and bad, intelligence and many fancy names are given while people try to explain the most selfish act that man performs every minute. For example, take game shows where there's an option called 'Public opinion'. They give you the result of what a handful of men like you think and finally you are expected to make a choice from that. Its the average man's choice rather average of a group of men's choice. If you say this is trivial, consider demanding situations like undergoing a surgery. The doctor asks you to make a choice. It doesn't matter if you HAVE to say yes, you are still given a choice.
Was the creation of the Universe forced or by choice? You may never know. There could be a force governing the creation which in-turn is governed by another set of attributes. Probably there were a handful of men giving suggestions about which planet to choose and the guy in charge of creation chose Earth. May be he did not want to, may be it was like undergoing a surgery. You may never know.

When making choices comes freewill. Its like your shadow at noon. Its there but you can't see it. Its ultimately your wish and will to press the button with or without considering other factors. You might not want to handover your car keys and watch your girlfriend get shot. Or you can consider irrelevant factors like love, humanity and common sense and handover your car keys and still watch your girlfriend get shot.

You had a choice to whether read this load of nonsense or to close the window and watch Rebecca black on youtube. Yet I presume you chose to read this not because you were an insomniac and believed this would put you to sleep but you wanted to. To create the illusion of freewill here I let you to choose the title of this post. Call it whatever you feel like. Call it "Relativity disproved" or "Menu card of Saravana Bhavan". It ultimately comes down to you.

I'd love to quote Jigsaw here "Make a choice"

The hand that rocks the cradle

The baby was crying. It was not of hunger, something that says he's been disturbed, something of sleeplessness and she was trying to make the baby sleep. She started playing with him. Took him in her hands and started walking around the house. She wanted him to stop crying. 


She started telling him stories. 

"Let me tell you about daddy and me. You will listen to it and sleep like a good boy. Will you?
Here you see the balcony? Here's where we sat when Daddy brought me home for the first time. He made me tea. We had cookies, yes your favorite ones. Come we'll go to the other room. Here is where the bedroom was previously. See the cupboard there? Inside it was a card, a rose and a ring. Daddy asked me if i will marry him. Guess what I said? Of course you know what I said. I said I will. And then we got married. Come we'll go to your room. We shifted the bedroom here. This room had the window through which the moon is visible. Daddy's idea it was. And this is where you were born. And you slept "

She left him in his crib. She was watching him sleep. The calmness in his face made her glad.

"And you slept. Let me finish off the story. You were born and made us happy. Immensely happy. Everything was perfect until she came. Yes, that aunty who gifted you the train. I didn't like her even a bit. Right from the beginning. And whatever I feared happened. She stole Daddy from Mommy. You wouldn't like that would you? But she did. And Daddy moved in with her. Now you are all my possession. You are my only ray of hope. And know what Daddy did today? He came with some papers. He wanted me to sign them. Are you sleeping baby? Good good. And he wanted me to sign them. I said I wouldn't. You don't like the other room, no baby? Very good. Mommy will be back in a while"

She went to the other room and started digging Daddy's grave. With a satisfactory smile. Looking at the corpse that lay next to her. She was digging the grave, with the hand that rocks the cradle.

Mummy, Manmohan and Manchester United

Go Go MUFC 

You might not understand the quote(?) that I have mentioned here. It has a very deep sense of philosophy, historical importance and is used as a reference to a club which is inevitable in the EPL. This reference is used by fans of the said club ONLY on the occurrence of events that change history once for all, like when one of them fans are able to poop successfully in the morning. They claim they don't refer to their club or chant the said quote when their club does not come in the picture. And that's why they scribble that all over facebook and twitter when Pompey beats Wigan or when Kate marries William. In short, Go Go MUFC is the "Who is John Galt?" of Manchester United.

It was election results yesterday. There were several significant changes made to the fate of the people of TN. From now on the tax payer's money will not benefit Mu.Ka and his family while it will be of great help to the people of 'Thamizh Naad' as the leader of the winning party says on tv. Nevertheless its been a remarkable victory and history has been rewritten and so the fans of the said club will as always grace us with the selective usage of Go Go MUFC.

Manmohan or Mum-Mohan as we know him better is neither happy or sad as Madamji hasn't yet advised him to respond to the election results of TN. He is unsure whether to rejoice or to plot the arrest of Kani and the King. Either way all he has to do is to sign a few papers and act important and remember to not to forget to keep quiet.


As the results have had an impact one might wonder how Manmohan is going to control the urge of using

Go Go MUFC.